Tele-Psychiatry

What is Tele-Psychiatry?

Telemedicine is the process of providing health care from a distance through technology, often using videoconferencing. Tele-Psychiatry, a subset of telemedicine, can involve providing a range of services including psychiatric evaluations, therapy (individual therapy, group therapy, family therapy), patient education and medication management.

Benefits

Video-based Tele-Psychiatry helps meet patients’ needs for convenient, affordable and readily-accessible mental health services. It can benefit patients in several ways, such as:

Improve access to mental health specialty care that might not otherwise be available (e.g., in rural areas)

Bring care to the patient’s location

Help integrate behavioral health care and primary care, leading to better outcomes

Reduce the need for trips to the emergency room

Reduce delays in care

Improve continuity of care and follow-up

Reduce the need for time off work, childcare services, etc. to access appointments far away

Reduce potential transportation barriers, such as lack of transportation or the need for long drives